AOTUS - Collector in Chief

The new administration has required agencies to create strategic plans covering 2018-2022. Our updated Strategic Plan was circulated for public comment over the past couple of months. We asked for input and you gave it. You can see the…

As part of the celebrations for Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, 30 new citizens from 22 nations were sworn in last week as new U.S. citizens in front of the Constitution in the Rotunda of the National Archives Museum in ……

In October 2015, the CFPB adopted significant changes to the rules under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Among the changes, the items of information to be collected and reported under HMDA are greatly expanded, with some items…

The FTC has launched a new page on its website dedicated to its Military Task Force. According to the FTC, it created the Task Force “to focus on identifying the particular needs of military consumers and developing initiatives to…

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a press release directing the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) to impose new rules on consumer reporting agencies (“CRAs”). The proposed…

CFTC Law

Currently, CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo is on a 10-day trip in Europe. Derivatives industry attorneys speculate that an European equivalence pact on swap execution rules might come into fruition very soon. If this happens, it would…

LedgerX Approved to Trade Bitcoin Futures LedgerX, a trading and clearing platform for Bitcoin, became the first company to be approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to trade Bitcoin futures. This is one of a few of…

Christopher Giancarlo was nominated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as the Chairman of the regulatory agency. Moreover, Brian Quintenz and Rostin Behnam, both of who are Republican nominees, were confirmed as CFTC…

Colorado Common Law

Dear Readers, I am moving to a new website: Intermediate Scrutiny. The change is necessary because I am longer located in Arizona. Because of life circumstances, I recently moved to Washington State and became a licensed attorney…

A Vaughn index is a tool used in public records disputes where the person requesting documents, will ask the court to compel the records custodian to list all responsive documents and explain why or why not the documents should be released.…

It appears a sad new trend in Colorado is to create policies or laws, treating homelessness as a criminal condition. A new report, “No Right to Rest: Criminalizing Homelessness in Colorado” which details the efforts cities and…

I went out for an early walk recently. One of the things I like about taking a walk is the way it clears the mind. This morning, the fog lifted and I realized with great clarity that I was an affirmative action baby. About a decade before I…

My latest piece for The Hill discusses the set of unacceptable choices we’ve been stuck with: thinking only of national economic growth and ignoring the local fallout, maintaining industries that do national damage for the sake of local…

Driven by the Tea Party, Republicans gave us a Congress that hasn’t been able to get much done. Saying less government is better, they take credit for getting nothing done, and leave immigration, tax policy, and health care to fester.…

Susan Antilla of Bloomberg news published a recent column revisiting the question of the continued viability of state securities regulators’ enforcement authority. I spoke to Susan about my research on the issue and I am quoted in…

Susan Antilla of Bloomberg news published a recent column revisiting the question of the continued viability of state securities regulators’ enforcement authority. I spoke to Susan about my research on the issue…

The Trump administration is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct research on transgender health, including “gender nonconforming people of all ages,’ according to a U.S. government grant announcement. The money…

A highly qualified and respected veteran law enforcement official with impressive credentials was precipitously eliminated as a finalist to be police chief in a U.S. city after officials discovered he endorsed immigration enforcement.…

A highly qualified and respected veteran law enforcement official with impressive credentials was precipitously eliminated as a finalist to be police chief in a U.S. city after officials discovered he endorsed immigration enforcement.…

Whether or not a sentence is appropriate for the crime convicted of and the character of the person convicted is a frequent issue on appeal. Less frequently there is an issue of sentence disparity between co-actors or co-accuseds. The…

Under Article 62, UCMJ, the prosecution can appeal a military judge’s trial ruling under six circumstances. The two most common are: (A) An order or ruling of the military judge which terminates the proceedings with respect to a…

Cuba Law Blog

Cuba has enjoyed a significant trade relationship with China since the 1990s, though their relationship is a historical one as well. When Cuba declared its independence from the United States in 1902, China’s Qing dynasty quickly…

Manufacturing has been a shrinking industry in the United States since the end of World War II, when the country’s galvanized work force undertook one of the greatest military industrial efforts in history. Although manufacturing still…

Hurricane Irma charged through Cuba last weekend, demolishing buildings, uprooting trees, and leaving 10 dead in its wake. The Category 5 storm had winds as fast as 160 miles per hour when it made landfall in Cuba, making it the most powerful…

I almost never watch a movie twice (except of course Groundhog Day). I generally hate re-runs. And so far this Maria show looks like an Irma rerun:
The post I Hate Reruns appeared first on Discourse.net.

Progressive Fatalism: Leftists Who Did Not Vote For Clinton Must OWN Their Decision and the Terrible Consequence

Since the election, a slew of post-mortems have appeared in mainstream and social media. One theme that has emerged, particularly among progressives who did not like Hillary Clinton, blames Trump's...
To view the rest of this article, please…

The Recent Critics of Identity Politics Are Clueless About Identity Politic

Many political scientists and other experts contend that reliable demographic information regarding the 2016 election does not yet exist. The scarcity of definitive data, however, has not deterred...
To view the rest of this article, please…

The Voices: Why Do White Male Progressives Hear Things That No One Else Can?

Nine years ago, the Democratic presidential primaries had already begun. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive frontrunner, suffered an upset defeat in the Iowa caucuses. Clinton lost the caucuses because...
To view the rest of this article,…

On Monday, I identified four problem areas to watch out for on Election Day: 1) lines at the polls, 2) voting equipment, 3) voter registration lists, and 4) provisional and absentee ballots. While machine breakdowns and polling place lines…

We now know that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. In the enormity of this moment in American history, the gritty details of election administration, upon which my Moritz colleagues and I spend so much…

Equal Vote: Election Law @ Mortiz

Covers election reform, the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act, and related topics. Special attention to the voting rights of people of color, non-English proficient citizens, and people with disabilities. Publsihed by Dan Tokaji at Moritz Colle

On Monday, I identified four problem areas to watch out for on Election Day: 1) lines at the polls, 2) voting equipment, 3) voter registration lists, and 4) provisional and absentee ballots. While machine breakdowns and polling place lines…

We now know that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. In the enormity of this moment in American history, the gritty details of election administration, upon which my Moritz colleagues and I spend so much…

UPDATE: the approved text of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union is available here. The Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union is…

SolarCity pays nearly $30 million to settle allegations of false claims to solar energy program

On September 22, the Department of Justice announced that SolarCity Corp. had agreed to pay $29.5 million to resolve civil allegations that arose from a federal investigation into the company’s claims for solar energy subsidy payments.…

On September 18, the Department of Justice announced a settlement with the state of Alaska over its use of federal nutrition assistance funds. According to DOJ’s press release: The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (ADHSS)…

New York city hospital firm pays $4 million for alleged Stark Law violation

On September 13, the Department of Justice announced that New York city-based MediSys Health Network, Inc., has agreed to settle a whistleblower’s suit alleging Stark Law violations for $4 million. According to DOJ’s press…

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, last Friday in Taylor v. Huerta, partially vacated the Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Registration and Marking Requirements for…

Regulatory practice last week presented a number of different Congressional interventions – from the complexity of a Consolidated Appropriation for the remainder of the fiscal year, to disapproval of a regulation under the Congressional…

Litigation over two more major rules was put on hold last week, leaving little actual litigation over past Administration rules proceeding – with small exceptions that may be short lived. At the same time, one court of appeals…

FERC finds against New York in Millennium Pipeline proceeding. On September 15, 2017, FERC issued a declaratory order finding that the New State Department of Environmental Conservation (“NYDEC”) waived its water quality…

A person who has been appointed as administrator of an estate or Executor under a Last Will and Testament is appointed to their role by either the Surrogate’s Court or Surrogate’s office. I’ve previously blogged about the…

A person who has been appointed as administrator of an estate or Executor under a Last Will and Testament is appointed to their role by either the Surrogate’s Court or Surrogate’s office. I’ve previously blogged about the…

After the Governor and the Assembly leader resolved their Fourth of July Weekend Budget Kerfuffle, some positivity came out of it for Medicaid long-term care providers and beneficiaries. Nursing home reimbursements would be increased by $10.5…

FOIA Advisor

Freedom of information resource for both experienced practitioners and new FOIA requesters. Visitors have free access to court decisions and summaries, links to reference material and how-to-guides, FOIA news, and can participate in a Q&A forum with FOIA experts.

My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA RequestFifty years ago, the Freedom of Information Act gave the public access to government secrets — all you had to do was ask. How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.By Spenser…

If you are a law student interested in studying abroad, the University of Tulsa offers a program in Geneva relating to Indigenous people. The 2009 program will run July 4 - August 1, 2009, and the classes offered for the first two weeks are…

Transcript of Argument in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle

The transcript of the argument today in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle is available here. Surprisingly, the Court was heavily interested in the idea that a majority Indian-owned corporation might be considered an Indian…

This was originally submitted to the Tulsa World as an op-ed piece, but was not published:update as of 4/10/08: The Tulsa World did indeed publish this an op-ed piece, The Native American Times reprinted it and the Cherokee Phoenix plans to…

The Campaign for Freedom of Information's next course on 'Information Commissioner & Tribunal Decisions - what do they mean in practice?' is taking place in London on 28th November 2013.This course, now in its 8th year, aims to help…

76 campaign groups, charities and press bodies have written to the prime minister urging him to drop proposals to restrict the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. They say the proposals are not compatible with the prime minister's stated aim of…

MPs call for extension of the FOI Act to cover contracted out public service

An Early Day Motion calling for the extension of the FOI Act to cover contracted out public services has been tabled by Labour MP Grahame Morris and co-sponsored by Caroline Lucas (Green), Mark Durkan (SDLP), John McDonnell (Lab), Margaret…

I have this in the latest edition of Judicature. Securing Judges and Courts The article looks at how courthouse security is increasingly seen as a statewide, state-level issue and goes over some of the trends noted here in the blog.

A set of bills previously discussed here, that require Michigan judges/courts that want to operate special problem solving dockets be certified by the state court administrator’s office has cleared that state’s Senate (news report…

California: bill would no longer allow candidates for judicial office to put “disingenuous and histrionic” words next to their names on the ballot

California law (Elec Code § 13107) allows for those seeking judicial office to designate their current principal professions, vocations, or occupation with up to a 3 word description plus the word or phrase “appointed…

Blockchain technology (“Blockchain”), also known as Distributed Ledger Technology, stands poised to transform the future of the financial industry. Generally speaking, Blockchain enables the creation of a continuously growing…

The Supreme Court’s decision on June 26 to take up the travel ban cases this fall, and in the meantime partially lift the injunction on the President’s travel ban, has created renewed uncertainty for certain travelers. Statements…

Has the Court of Federal Claims Relaxed its Standard for Obtaining TRO’s? Probably not.

In Continental Services Group, Inc. v United States (No. 17-449, March 29, 2017), the U.S. Department of Education issued a solicitation for the collection and administrative resolution of debts resulting from non-payment of student…

Most Government contracting officers are dedicated, hard-working and honest. The same is true of most Government proposal evaluators. As a result, arguments in bid protests that Government personnel were biased against the protestor or in…

GAO will dismiss protests once they become the subject of litigation at the US Court of Federal Claims. Sometimes protesters file at GAO, test the waters, and, when they don’t like what’s in the water, they voluntarily dismiss the…

Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be…

Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be…

Risks Posed by Third Party Vendors Increasingly a Challenge for Businesse

This week it was reported that Indian police arrested four people accused of leaking a pre-release episode of the blockbuster HBO show, “Game of Thrones.” The leak is supposedly the result of employees from a Mumbai-based…

Greenversations

by Catherine Magliocchetti EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region is home to millions of residents who rely upon private wells for their drinking water supply. As local conditions and weather may present the prospect of moderate and major…

by Jon Markovich In the previous Healthy Waters blog, my colleague Micka Peck wrote about the stream sampling we did for benthic macroinvertebrates. Pulling on a pair of waders and kicking around in the stream sampling was only half the…

by Micka Peck I was never a huge ‘bug person’ as a kid. It wasn’t that I bolted in terror at the sight of anything crawling my direction, but I didn’t greet a dangling spider with much enthusiasm either. My ……

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) CMS has announced a “new direction” for the CMS Innovation Center that is intended to “promote patient-centered care and test market-driven reforms.” The goal of…

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health has approved the following seven bipartisan bills addressing the Medicare Part B program: HR 3245, which would significantly increase various Medicare civil and criminal penalties under…

The House Ways and Means Committee has approved legislation to create an alternative pathway to resolve certain technical violations of the Stark physician self-referral law. The bill, HR 3726, would allow an entity or individual to…

Legislative highlights from the March 2017 Maritime and Infrastructure Federal Update is below. See the full update here. Trump’s “Skinny” Budget Targets TIGER Grants, Army Corps of Engineers and Leaves Questions Elsewhere…

On Tuesday, March 28, Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies hosted a special briefing on the prospects and impending efforts surrounding tax reform in Washington, D.C. I was joined by Dawn O’Donnell, former tax counsel to the…

Infra Insight Blog

Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District Begins Revenue Passenger Service

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (“SMART”) District kicked off passenger rail revenue service in Sonoma and Marin counties last week. The 43-mile rail line includes ten stations from the Sonoma County Airport to Downtown San…

In the early hours of August 15, 2017, the Denver City Council approved a $1.8 billion development agreement between the City and County of Denver’s Department of Aviation and Denver Great Hall, LLC, a consortium led by Madrid-based…

As part of an effort to facilitate the use of public-private partnerships (P3s) in public transportation capital projects, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) issued on Monday a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that aims to…

Special thanks to Robert J. Tribek and other attorneys at Rhoads & Sinon LLP (in Harrisburg, PA) for authoring this brief on behalf of IMLA and other parties. There’s a long history to this case, with litigation itself spanning back…

Lawfare

Coveres actions taken or contemplated to protect the nation interact with the nation’s laws and legal institutions, including cybersecurity, Guantánamo habeas litigation, targeted killing, biosecurity, universal jurisdiction, the Alien Tort Statute, and the state secrets privilege. By Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith and Robert Chesney.

Backlash to Kurdish Independence Referendum Begins, Trump Has Made Decision on Iran Deal, Russian and U.S.-backed Forces Converge in Syria

Iraqi Kurds Vote on Secession, Backlash Begins
Iraqi Kurds went to the polls yesterday to vote on a referendum to determine whether or not to initiate a political process to secede from Iraq. While the ballots are still being tallied, the…

PDF VERSION
A review of Joel Whitney's book, Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers (OR Books, 2017).
***
Thumbing through the June edition of Washington Lawyer, I noticed the headline “Worth Reading: When…

Today at 10:00 am, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled 'Special Counsels and the Separation of Powers' to consider two bills that are designed to protect special counsels from wrongful termination. It will…

In a special three-part miniseries for the Verrill Voices podcast, attorney Jonathan Dunitz discusses risk management for breweries and brewpubs with a successful brewery owner, a leading insurance agent in the craft beverage industry, and an…

Few brewers would dream of serving someone in their brewery or tasting room without checking an ID to ensure that all the craft beer lovers in the room are of legal drinking age. When it comes to their virtual breweries and tasting…

After traveling to Iceland with more than a dozen of Maine’s brewers to greet the Maine Beer Box at the Bjorfestival in Reykijavik, Verrill Dana Attorney Tawny Alvarez reflected on the importance of standing out in a global marketplace…

Legislation Law Prof Blog

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR CENTRAL STATES LAW SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR CENTRAL STATES LAW SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE Registration is now open for the Central States Law Schools Association 2016 Scholarship Conference, which will be held on Friday, September 23 and Saturday, September 24…

The Fifth “Colonial Frontier” Legal Writing Conference Saturday, December 3, 2016 Hosted by Duquesne University School of Law Drafting Statutes and Rules: Pedagogy, Practice, and Politics The least common, but perhaps one of the…

AALS Section on Legislation and Law of the Political Process- New Voices in Legislation Program at 2017 AALS

The AALS Section on Legislation and Law of the Political Process is pleased to announce that it will host a "New Voices in Legislation" program during the 2017 AALS Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA. This works-in-progress program will…

Legislative Blog

Elise Helgesen AguilarLegislativeWe have lately become all too familiar with demands for religious exemptions from the contraception coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Now, the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH)…

Elise Helgesen AguilarLegislativeWe have lately become all too familiar with demands for religious exemptions from the contraception coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Now, the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH)…

Vanessa WolbrinkLegislativeThe public (63%) does not support private school vouchers: every time a voucher program has been put to a vote in the past 45 years, the voters have rejected it. Despite this disapproval, Governors around the…

Recently, the California Court of Appeals has overturned a ruling by the lower court on the controversial issue of the right of publicity that many had deemed to be dangerous for many digital giants like Facebook and Linked-In. The right of…

The Colloquialization of Crime: Why Understanding the History of the Law Matter

With the newest revelations about the communication between the Trump Campaign and a Russian lawyer who allegedly had ties to the Kremlin, many pundits and reporters are asking the same question: Is collusion a crime? Despite the speculation…

Federal regulations can be incredibly complex, but the law can become even more complicated on the state level. Legislation can vary wildly depending on where you are in the nation. For more than 100 years, state courts have used the idea of…

Arthur West filed suit under Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act, ch. 42.30 RCW (“OPMA”), against the Pierce County Council and individual Council members based on a series of e-mails between members of the Council and the…

From $37 to $339,000: Why the Price of Public Records Requests Varies So Much

The laws about public records differ from one government to the next and are further complicated by some technologies, like police body cameras.
By Liz Farmer from Governing.com
In 2015, the editor of a newspaper in Florida filed a…

Immigration judges are career civil-service employees in the Department of Justice’s executive office. The judges preside over matters such as deportation, exclusion, removal and rescission proceedings for non-citizens charged with…

Attorney, Keith R. Siskind of the Law Offices of Steinhardt, Siskind and Associates, LLC, attended the American Bar Association ERISA Litigation Seminar held in Chicago from June 7th through June 9th, 2017. This seminar explored a…

Attorney, Keith R. Siskind of the Law Offices of Steinhardt, Siskind and Associates, LLC, attended the American Conference Institute seminar on Litigating Disability Insurance Claims held in Boston on September 14 and 15, 2016. The…

Attorney, Keith R. Siskind of the Law Offices of Steinhardt, Siskind and Associates, LLC, attended the American Conference Institute seminar on Litigating Disability Insurance Claims held in Boston on September 14 and 15, 2016. The…

Building a structure without a permit (with exceptions on the meaning of structure under the California Building Code) is a misdemeanor in most California local entities. Usually, the punishment for a misdemeanor under most municipal codes…

By Michael Reiter, Attorney at Law I have been involved in a number of neighbor disputes, long-running and costly. But this is a new one. You should definitely click on the article, but a neighbor in Washington State mowed the shortened…

“inewsource.org” is a non-profit news-gathering organization in San Diego. They have put together data regarding complaints and resolutions into a searchable database found here. This database includes all complaints…

Nancy Rapoport's Blogspot

Covers governance in higher education and in law firms, bankruptcy ethics, popular culture and the law, Enron and other corporate fiascos, and professional responsibility generally. By Nancy Rapoport, a law professor at UNLV's Boyd School of Law.

Why the Westin Cincinnati is likely the very worst Westin in the country.

How do we count the ways in which the Westin Cincinnati is a very, very bad hotel?First, the good news: friendly staff and great location. That, however, is the only good news.1. Let's start with safety. There should…

The story on Whittier in the NYT is here.As I said in 2012, "[t]he world doesn’t need as many ABA-accredited law schools as it has already, just as the world has figured out that it doesn’t need as many U.S.-based BigLaw firms as…

John Tahsuda III named Principal Dep Asst Sec'y for Indian AffairsNews Bulletinhttp://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/news/currentnews.htmlIn the Intergovernmental section, we feature a story about the appointment of the Principal Deputy…

Office Depot Agrees to Pay $43 Million to Resolve Allegations Under the California False Claims Act

Office Depot will reportedly pay $43 million to resolve allegations that the company violated the California False Claims Act by “systematically” violating the terms of its contracts with various California governmental…

Pharmaceutical companies have been a part of some of the largest settlements in the history of the FCA. Below is a list of the ten largest FCA settlements by members of the pharmaceutucal industry: 1. GlaxoSmithKline – $2 billion…

The Department of Justice announced that Community Health Systems (CHS) agreed to pay $98.15 million to settle allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act by billing Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE for medically unnecessary…

New Jersey Does Not Need the Republicans Legislating the 2% Salary Cap Out of Fear of November’s Impending Gubernatorial Election Result

Over the past several days, the minority leaders of the New Jersey State Legislature have become increasingly vocal in their demands to renew what is commonly called the Interest Arbitration Salary Cap. The Interest Arbitration Salary…

New Jersey State Employees to Receive Back Pay For Time Away From Work Due To Government Shutdown

As reported by NJ 101.5, Governor Chris Christie has signed the bill granting back pay to state workers to cover the wages lost during the three-day partial government shutdown at the start of July. An estimated 30,000 to 35,000 workers were…

3rd Circuit Rules that Citizens Have The Right to Film Law Enforcement Officer

As reported in the New Jersey Law Journal, in the case entitled Fields v. City of Philadelphia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently joined five other circuits in ruling that the First Amendment protects…

Sens. Jennifer Beck and Ron Rice pledged their unwavering support for tenants at Pueblo City, as they file a class action lawsuit against the owners of the Newark housing complex. Pueblo City was one of the properties visited by the senators…

Sen. Diane Allen vowed to fight for funding to support mothers and infants coping with addiction, and thanked Gov. Christie for including funding for them in his new spending proposal to combat the opioid epidemic. The funding in his plan…